citizen of nowhere

Brexit campaigners have an almost religious belief in a new, “outward-looking”, era of free trade, which they claim can only be achieved by severing links with the world’s largest free trade area, Europe. Tariffs will be abolished, under WTO rules, leading to a new era of growth and prosperity. Sadly this is an illusion like many other aspects of Tory plans to leave the EU. EU rules are no impediment to global trade, as can be seen in Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland. WTO rules require border administration and customs to police trading agreements, unlike the open borders within the European Union. An aggressive free trade policy might, at first sight, offer interesting possibilities but this is more illusion than substance. Campaigners point to Britain’s global trading dominance in the 19th century but there are important missing elements in this argument; politics and regulation. A genuinely free trade policy would require reduced or eliminated tariffs, certainly, but it would...